Sunday, August 25, 2013

Firing 10% of SIU? A Reasonable Request.

I was talking to someone I respect, about that letter, who works at SIU. They asked me, if I wanted to get rid of 10% of SIU employees, how would I do it? They told me that the secretary ranks have been cut already. Someone else told me the painters in housing are way down too. A third person told me that University Museum has been cut from 22 employees to 5 (22! I don't know, but 22?). Maybe there isn't any more fat? Ha ha, good one.

Do we all agree that if you are working at 25% of capacity, you should
be fired? Let's just start with that. You aren't working, and you
can't be rehabilitated, you are gone. No tenure, no union contract, no person should be protected, who will not work. That alone would fix much of the problems.

Let's start with a simple idea, someone needs to go into the administration of SIU and debone it. Just like a fish, you have to go in and examine things, and throw the part that can't be consumed away. It isn't easy. I have done it, but heck, when I'm in those positions, I make a lot of money by having the right sized staff (or at least lose less). The fish isn't the problem, it is the bones. Repeat after me, it is lonely at the top.

Let's start with the easy stuff. Everyone who cuts lawns should be gone, and that work should be outsourced to private industry, no skill there, easy. Moving stuff? Painting? Phones? Networks? Hanging blackboards? Replacing ceiling tiles? Everything that isn't the mission of the university, should be examined and outsourced, or eliminated. You aren't thinking that the big manufacturing plant has insourced everything, do you? There isn't a more expensive blue collar employee, then State Civil Service. Every administration department that has less then 10 people, that has a director, assistant director, a staff member or two, and a secretary, is likely overstaffed. You could just start to examine the small departments, and work up from there. It is likely that 2 people do the work, and everyone else BS's, isn't it?

If you work at SIU, walk out of your office, and go down the hall, counting offices. How many offices contain someone who would be fired, if they weren't "employed" (not works there, just employed) by SIU? Can you make it 10 offices, before finding someone who should be gone? As you walk, how many people have terrible jobs, where there isn't enough work to do, so they are trapped in the highest paying job available to them? I can see those departments, staffed for the one day of the year when they maximum work load, and bored out of their minds the rest of the time, from here. The trapped people should be freed to pursue a challenging and rewarding career.

SIU is out of balance. In a perfect world, the employees, customers and owners are in some kind of balance. What the owners of SIU, the citizens of Illinois, through their duly elected officials, are trying to tell you that they aren't happy. So, they are cutting your money, until balance is restored. For too long, the employees of SIU have taken more then their fair share, you should fix it, before something really bad happens. If you want to argue that most all universities are this way, you are right, and the citizens have decided to fix it.

I'm listening to the Avett Brothers at Red Rocks in the background, isn't it amazing what you can get on the internet?

Enough for now, more about this later. Of course, your comments are welcome, assuming you don't want to do it anonymously.

About Me

A software engineer by trade, Peter co-founded Bsquare Corporation of Bellevue, WA (Nasdaq - BSQR). His wood shop is stored on pallets, in his new building, so nothing is happening in the shop. Expect work in manufacturing and other industries that might be successful in a rural community.